project wedding shoes

in full swing

take your pick

updates

Rather excitingly I have some snippets of news I thought I should share..my work will be published in a new report to be featured on Mintel, as well as a new Footwear design book to be published next year! I have also found a sponsor interested in developing my sole unit for manufacture and will be hopefully be working with them from the new year to start some testing!

Gradex bits

I'm also in the process of finalising all work for my portfolio for the show (which all students have had to totally reformat into a muji folder so everyone looks the same after spending loads of effort and money on unique branding and folios..?!) and also for the gradex showtime and new designers websites. I've decided to make a digital sketchbook so have been exploring issue.com, a site which lets you upload work and create digital publishing - exciting! So I've been trawling through my design development for this project to decide what to put in...

CS3 glee

So I've also been trying to teach myself the rest of the adobe CS3 collection now that I have a little more time and need to make a website etc. I now realise trying to make a fashion film was too ambitious given that I would have had less than 2 weeks to do it and have never done any film before, but I'm happy to have learned some new film skills in the region of animation. Having worked with the LCF digital fashion studio to create an animation (in 3D studio Max) to explain the construction of my shoe, I'm now trying to learn adobe after effects to add on all of the little finishing touches, and some musique. watch this space..

Icica from Helen Furber on Vimeo.

Showtime

So over the moon with these images. Thanks to David Abrahams (Photographer) and Natalie Fisher (Stylist). I will be making a digital and print lookbook asap.

All images Copyright Helen Furber 2010

Spraymount Neutral

So the weekend was absolutely mad and it's taken me until now to recover from 3 days of zero sleep and a month of 18 hour days. I didn't finish everything the way I wanted to in time for the uni deadline which was a massive disappointment but the shoes were ready which is what counts - not bad in just over a month! Just organising all of the bits and pieces - there's always some extra little thing to be done, like embossing business card samples, box-making etc. In the end, the majority was done and as the boyf pointed out, it's a good job the rest of the project is "sustainable" to offset spraymount emissions that were leaching from my flat! Onwards to finalising animation, lookbook printing and website..

Making a sample shoe box

shoot deux

So as well as an editorial style shoot I also wanted some images of the products which really showcase them in their own right. Working with David Abrahams and Natalie Fisher again we put heads together and following my brief of "nature meets technology", deciding the theme of the shoot should be based around natural textures which also look luxury/futuristic. I got on t'internet and ordered a whole load of bits: first off black gravel - I'd been dying to use this is some way or another and finally had a chance! Then also white wool tops - the excess from the spinning process which themselves are also really beautiful. I loved the idea of using a waste natural product in the shoot - in the end it was 100g of natural fibre Ramie Tops. Natalie also came up with the idea of eggs and charcoal which gave us an even balance of colours and textures for the background shots. After a trip to tesco and dalston market, my livingroom was again crammed full of camera stuff and trays of these bits...

And I will be baking for several months.

shoot (me)

Yesterday was a pretty frought affair. After a meeting to finalise the animation for my product we had scheduled to have my editorial shoot at 7 in the evening but at midday the third confirmed model cancelled on me. So at 6.30 after an unsuccessful non-finish of the animation (going back today...) I headed off to topshop oxford circus in search of the face of my campaign. God bless topshop in all it's glory for there in the queue with a huge mass of bags and looking all pretty was mary, a norwegian 15year old on holiday, who after an initial moment of confusion agreed to come along (grandma in tow) and take part. 5 hours later following some precarious perching on a black glass box (made by my flatmate's own fair hand) and lots of yawning we had our shoot. And the rest as they say is history..Get the photos back today. The shoes fit her like a glove..I'm excited!

Uber Mega thanks to Natalie (my flatmate) and David (her boyf) who were stylist and photographer for my shoot.

bubbles: I wage war on thee

Until this project I found bubbles rather attractive. Now starting the last week before hand in for my ENTIRE degree, and we still have not managed to cast my wedge and shoe grips despite having a vacuum machine, And all because of bubbles. I am slowly developing a newfound hatred..

updates..

So the blog has been quiet of last as the past two weeks I had the absolute privelage to return to Y-3 at adidas and work with the team there on my prototypes. Needless to say I wasn't too upset when volcanic eruptions forced me to stay longer...

Now so excited to recieve the bits..and back to reality of organising all the rest. sigh.

what i've been upto of late

So aside from a fair bit of time staring at my laptop and trying to model my parts in rhino, here's a snippet of the recent grateful moments when I've been in the workshop doing a bit more of your traditional(ish) hand-shoemaking .. (complete with chipped nail varnish, sigh).

play time

Today I happened upon an exciting discovery - that some stuff I bought for modelling heels (which is too soft..) is actually brilliant for customising lasts. I've been intending to alter them now that they'd arrived since I want to really make my own silhouettes, but have been a bit tentative about shaving bits off and so on incase of making a horrible mistake. Well this stuff was great for letting me sculpt the toes I really wanted, and let me change the shape constantly until I was happy. Tomorrow I will cover it in some other stuff which will set it to make it stiff for ready to make my shoes..good times!